I haven’t been posting much lately, and it’s not for lack of my boys’ humor or cuteness. Life has been almost unbearably stressful. Also, as soon as I got around to doing this blog, my kids grew to an age of self-awareness. I won’t post stories that might embarrass them. Five-and-three-quarter-year-olds take themselves very seriously, therefore so must I. As much as I love lamenting about missing my babies and writing about way back when, it’s time to move on. So I put my energy into a wild, new endeavor: publishing a book! The story was created over a year ago when L demanded (over and over) “the one about the bird with a broken wing,” and not knowing the story he was talking about, I made one up. It became so tight that if I got a word wrong, the boys would correct me. An artist-mom from their preschool agreed to illustrate, and the rest is history! Check it out!
So, with enchanted dreams of becoming a writer and just so I could post something for NPR’s Poetry Contest, I created a Twitter account, Mamagrit1. Maybe now I’ll actually use Twitter. I missed the contest, but posted a gem anyways:
#NPRpoetry
Asked my 5-year-old boys
For examples of patterns & rules,
Sit at dinner. No burping. No farts.
Mom can wear man boots. Men can wear hearts.
Back to the rest of a stressful life. It’s been turbulent. Even airlines warn you to put on your own air mask before putting one on your kid. For much longer than I care to admit, I’ve been running on a hamster wheel getting hit by rotten eggs while trying to juggle fragile, jeweled eggs called, “life,” “love” and the “pursuit of happiness.” Oh yea, and, “kids.” When life gets crazy, it’s not like we can put the kids on pause until we get it together. I’m not very good at asking for help or allowing help to actually help. (Yea yea, I’ll work on that.) In lieu, more like in desperation, I’ve been trying different of coping strategies, like giving in to my inner child and giving yoga precedence above sleeping, eating or cleaning. Cocktails were fun until that month when the whole family got the flu twice. Looking for opportunity in everything is generally good for a wry laugh, like finding the dresser that belonged to my grandfather etched all over with a new design done by a 5-year-old with a sharp screw is an opportunity to practice non-attachment.
It goes like this. I say, in a bit of shock, “Kids, I’ve just gotten some really bad news.” They climb in my lap, and look at the computer. It’s all words, and thankfully, they can’t read them. Within seconds, they have moved on to a game of shooting off tiny Legos at each other, which turns into a game of flying broomsticks around the house. I hear, “Sir- you are about to go under attack!” and “Emergency!” They crawl under the table around my feet making shooter noises, then disappear into their living room fort with more unintelligible noise. My inner child wants to curl up in a ball and cry, so I ignore the mess – the pens left out uncapped, the bits of cut-up paper on the floor, the chairs and stools pushed to different open cupboards, the snacks left open and spilled, and instead stare into space. It’s easy to get short-tempered with the kids. I need quiet. I need to think. But I know if I share my tension with them, they will get tense, too, and the last thing I’ll get out of that is quiet. I wonder if the kids disappear into their own world in part because I am distracted by adult-world-problems, or if they’d be doing this anyway. I daydream being drunk in college, stuck in a sticky, is-it-beer-or-pee bathroom with people pounding on the door, and being unable to get the OB tampon unwrapped. What I wouldn’t give for that to be my most intense experience of panic again.
My partner comes home, and we put the kids in front of a movie. In a perfect world, movies would be reserved for special occasions, a once-a-month family affair with popcorn and discussion afterwards. This is not a perfect world. Movies are for us, not for the kids. The kids really don’t mind, either. They will happily watch the new Star Wars a fifth time. Their parents need some quiet time to incorporate the bad news.
We don’t actually talk about it. There is nothing we can solve tonight, and nobody to blame. Later, we’ll remember there’s more to our world than the tightrope we just got pushed off of, but tonight feels like a free fall. I’ve learned that I can’t fix everything, in fact, there’s a whole hell of a lot over which I have no control. We will land. And keep going. We find solace in the mundane. We share Facebook memes.
We all do the best we can with what we’ve got. I believe in karma and manifesting good through positive action and good intention. I believe in making good choices. Still, bad things happen. They just do. Nobody deserves it. Life is about how we get through it, not why it happens. It’s about how to protect the kids, how to manage the daily grind when part of you is spinning off into the ether, and even how to find grace. Most people go through shit. People get sick or injured, or die. People lose their jobs or their their jobs lose them. People have mental illness. A car crash. Rejection letters. Divorce. A lawsuit. Pets get sick or die or dig a hole through the carpet. In fact, if you haven’t gone through shit, I don’t trust you. Dig a little deeper, sister.
Having kids adds a whole other level to going through shit. Sometimes I think back to how I thought it would be to have kids, and it feels like I trained in a wading pool to navigate a kayak across the ocean. Like so many parents, I find myself bobbing in choppy water with no land in sight. I’m exhausted, it’s raining, a child is wailing, there’s no food left, and all I can think is how strange it is to be the parent when I still feel like such a kid. I’m an old lesbian mom without family around, which contributes to my sense of isolation and overwhelm I’m sure. But I bet lots of parents find themselves here for one reason or another. So here I am. What if the circumstances we find ourselves in are, in fact, just what we need to become our best selves?
I read some advice in a book by Julie Cameron that suggested a daily exercise of listening to my inner child. So I went there. I tried to listen with no filter. Don’t laugh. It’s not easy to listen hard. I’m writing now to report with childlike glee that it’s working. If I feel like throwing a tantrum because the house is trashed yet again, I treat myself like I treat my kids. “YES, THIS SUCKS FOR YOU! You built this beautiful tower, and someone just knocked it over! How can I make it better? Okay, let’s leave it for now, and take a hot bath instead.” It actually helps beyond that moment. If one of my kids melts down, I’ll stop and hold him until he feels better. Likewise, when I am totally overwhelmed by stress, or sadness or fear, I stop and listen. Let myself be. Stuff doesn’t get done, and I have to let it go. As a result, everything is way messier than I’d like, I eat a lot of chocolate and often don’t get dressed or brush my teeth unless I have to leave the house. I have a to-do list that is months old and a mile long. My shit is very much not together. But, when I keep up this practice, I’m much calmer and better with the kids. I feel happier. Every day, I try to give some small thing to my kid-self: planting something in the yard, doodling a picture, writing, shopping for something I’ve always wanted, but thought I couldn’t have- anything that feels indulgent. And when she says, “I want to write a storybook,” well, I believe her. It’s amazing how much this shifts my sense of well-being, and it’s amazing how hard it is to keep up. In a world where women are taught to subvert their needs, especially if that need is coming from a place that feels childish, it’s hard to even hear an inner voice. I wonder how many others, like me, feel like that inner kid doesn’t deserve to be listened to. But when I remember to listen, it works. I feel validated, and that makes me stronger, calmer, nicer. -Way more able to feel sane when things get crazy. Working out is good, too. Imperative, actually. Okay, the truth is that working out is the number one most important stress-management tool. (I have cried because I’m so grateful for yoga. More than once.) Listening to my inner child runs a very close second. I’m no Zen Master, but at least the boys aren’t being flagged at school as having a turbulent home life. They seem pretty happy, anyway.
Kids need us in their world. It’s a world where if you ask someone if he’s a bad guy, he’ll answer honestly, and then “POW!” …just kill him. Everyone else in their world is good to each other, or at least fair. It’s a world is full of wonder and possibility. You learn to focus on the beautiful flower right in front of you instead of the train crashing in the distance. The kids’ world doesn’t even include the train. It’s okay to be in their world, to laugh, to have fun, make good food, and build forts, even if that feels somehow disloyal to the gravity of the crashing train. It’s more than okay. It’s necessary. You are the lens through which your kids learn how to focus. Their happiness depends on your happiness. You have to actually be happy. When stress is prolonged, it’s got to be balanced with in-the-moment, kids’-world happiness. I realized one day the danger that my kids will only remember me as stressed out. A year that flies by for me is their entire conscious memory right now, so I had to shift my focus. There will always be a train crashing somewhere in the distance.
On a recent sunny morning, D picked a dandelion, daisies and a poppy from the yard, and carefully arranged them in a tiny vase he found by himself in the cupboard. (Aperitif glasses make excellent vases.) He took Maddy by the hand, and showed her each new plant growing in the yard. Then, the boys built a shelter on the porch with umbrellas and their old baby blankets, helping each other. They brought snacks and treasures into their magical little cave. It was such a beautiful day because of the rain we’d had for a few days prior, and also because of how peaceful it was, despite another looming disaster. No matter what happens, we will be okay. Happy, even, because we have this moment.
Mamagrit 